In recent months, though, Georgia and Azerbaijan have faced another serious challenge: deepening chaos, and declining Russian authority, on the northern side of the Caucasus mountains, on a scale which could wreck their own fragile and hard-won stability.

ECONOMIST: The dark side of the Caucasus

They treat it as if it is a natural phenomenon that can be manipulated and exploited, rather than the fragile creation of several generations of hard work, risk-taking and inventiveness.

WSJ: Washington Is Killing Silicon Valley

Debt burdens remain huge, and fragile banking sectors are making it hard for businesses to get credit.

ECONOMIST: Better news in East Asia

In this small-scale comedy, Peter Chelsom, a first-time director, takes a whimsical conceit and sells it so hard that it loses most of its fragile charm.

NEWYORKER: Hear My Song

The bourgeoisie originally used the fragile boxes to hold snuff, fake beauty marks and hard candies.

FORBES: Enamored by enamels

However, the cat (or, rather, subatomic particles that behave like the cat) has proved hard to hunt down in practice because such superpositions of states are fragile and easily disrupted phenomena.

ECONOMIST: The 2012 Nobel prizes